


sketches, wishing to be real

by homsantoft (tofsla)



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, I cannot stress "weird" enough, Just Gods Having Weird Angsty God Sex, M/M, Pre-Marielda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-10 23:55:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13512420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tofsla/pseuds/homsantoft
Summary: Everyone knows it's ending, and nobody knows how to let go.Samothes and Samot do terribly at talking about it and even worse at coping with it.





	sketches, wishing to be real

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna go ahead and admit that tagging this one... challenged me. There's a lot of weird violence and definitely some things that could be upsetting on a suicide & self-harm note, while not really being about suicide per se, because: gestures at canon. This is also where I land on "choose not to use archive warnings" - buddy, I _don't even know._ You stand so advised.
> 
> I told Hauke and James I was here to make it weird, and I sure. Did. I did that.

“The boy is strong,” Samothes says. “Have faith in him.”

Samot watches him. Wary eyes, some trace of the lupine left in them, even after all this time.

“Just wait,” he says. “That’s your answer for me? Just wait?”

“You know it is.” An easy gesture: open palm, facing upward. Offering, appeasement, demand. “A seed needs time to grow.”

“So make time happen. _Do_ something.”

“My clever one,” Samothes says, an aching break to the phrase, a longing—stretches out his arm, now, so that he could be touching Samot’s cheek—if Samot only took a step closer. Please. May I. I desire you.

Samot steps forward. 

He holds Samothes’ hand to his cheek. Fingertips on the unforgiving ridge of his cheekbone. Thumb on the corner of his mouth. But see this: the dents his own pale fingers press into Samothes’ skin. 

The blood-flushed crescent moons that his nails leave there.

What Samothes leaves on Samot is a smear of honest dirt: metal dust and clay and magic.

Samot wipes it from his lip—draws his dirtied thumb across his tongue. His eyes lose none of their watchful focus.

Samothes’ gaze is perhaps indulgent. Certainly not disinterested. All the same, unsure. How often, now, it is unsure. 

“I have no answer that will satisfy you,” he says.

It is not death that circles them, precisely—not that old friend. Not only simple death that shadows Samot’s proud face, that lines Samothes’ eyes with a vicious aching red.

See how the light in the room flickers and wavers as they argue their way along the edge of the void. These are not men—resemble them only, or are resembled. To imagine a thing in the world is to risk its birth.

Outside, Maelgwyn laughs, unseen.

Samot laughs too. Curious that such disparate sounds can be contained in the same word. Touches his cheek where the traces of Samothes’ work still linger—lets his hand fall. “Is even this only temporary, then?”

“No,” Samothes says.

Samot is smiling. It is as strange as his laugh. “Liar,” he says. “Stop pretending.”

Ah, here:

Samothes closes his eyes: a brief flicker of absence. For an icy moment his warmth is shuttered from Samot—stutters back through him not as a gentle swell or a clean slice of sunlight but with the jagged force of a hunter’s barbed arrow, stomach to spine. In another layer of existence, somewhere below the surface, he is a wolf bleeding out on a forest floor, pine needles sticking to his pelt. In another time he kneels at the feet of his killer, blood spreading between his human fingers, and snarls as he dies—or laughs as he dies—or sinks into quiet acceptance of the coming twist of time, of reality, of life. Many things have pierced him, and none of them ever happened here, but they were real.

Samothes has touched him in many ways.

Everything can be changed, and nothing is lost—nothing, nothing—except to that final burning dark, which Samot himself was made to serve.

“I need you here,” Samothes says. “Now more than ever.”

Samot has lived a thousand strange lives. He has stolen from the world and from the gods and from the void itself. How many have needed him? Oh, more people than can be imagined. Oh, more people than knew it themselves. 

None—none the way Samothes needs him.

”You know what you have to do to keep me,” Samot says. Closer, closer. He is ice, his fingers trailing a freezing burn down the side of Samothes’ neck. His thumb comes to rest at the hollow of Samothes' throat. Here is the airway. Here is the quiet pulse beneath the skin. The minute shift of muscle with every breath—every movement of Samothes’ jaw. Press down—

Samothes’ grip on Samot’s hair has every appearance of harshness: his hand fists deep in the tumble of it. Tight against the tender base of the skull. 

It is Samothes who is denied air but Samot who gasps as if starved for it. 

“Stop this,” Samothes says, each word rasping against Samot’s thumb. “Beloved—stop this.” Not the act, the press and squeeze—nothing so simple—

He burns. There are so many nuances of desire, but nuance is not his way—he is a hammer, a sword—his ingenuity is a crowbar wedged beneath the fabric of the world. He knows all that can be known, but what subtlety is there in the knowing only? So, here: he becomes a wanting thing, his will focused, and Samot, so desired, is pleased—

“Make me, then, if you can,” Samot says.

What is it to be loved by a god, even as a god oneself? Samot trembles, hand falling slack as Samothes pushes forward against it—his lips are parted in anticipation of a kiss, and in the moment the anticipation becomes the thing itself his face still falls into a desperate twist. Of pleasure and of pain—both intimately entwined—the reality always too much. And never enough—no end to his hunger—he is such, such, such a hungry thing. Hungrier than fire.

Samothes has always known it. 

These are two feeling beings, for all they also live by stranger rules—they have these same desires, the visceral ones. They ache for love. For sex, just now—a sort of affirmation—a sort of—

No, no need to name all the things it might be. Here—leave Maelgwyn to his bold games upon the lawn. The earth himself keeps watch. Away in a work-cluttered room Samot lays himself bare, a furious vulnerability in the tightness of his hands—strips himself of layers of years—what are they worth, if he is thwarted here? If he cannot make Samothes understand?

Samothes is the one to stop him. His relentless anchoring weight pulls Samot down. Stay, he says with a deeper kiss—stay, he says with a hand on the small of Samot’s back—

Samot consents to coalesce again in Samothes’ arms, in the present moment, the present reality. But his grip on Samothes is harsh. On Samot’s skin, disquietingly pale as it is, Samothes’ blood stands out sharply—turns dark in the creases around Samot’s nails. Long scratches from shoulder to flank, repeated. Samothes, pushed back against the wall, makes no complaint—although the plaster is rough against his broken skin—although Samot grants him no space to breathe, no moment to reorient the world. 

There is a reality in which Samot kills him now, all cool calculation, all venom and intent—cries as he does it, of course, but what of that? A space created, just large enough, in which to develop his contentious work. They pass the shape of it between them in a look, examine without words the feeling of it—nothing more than Samot’s hands, than severed vessels, than blood.

Samot blinks it all away—the dream of blood, and the reality—when Samothes lays him down upon the floor and kneels above him, Samothes’ skin is unmarked. The now in which Samot tore at him is pressed below the surface. Accepted. Placed aside.

In this now, Samot only cups Samothes’ face between his hands—only kisses him with a terrible sweetness—only moves restlessly beneath him with a building want. 

Samothes strokes Samot’s cock too slowly, but if Samot feels tortured it is only a side-effect—only the work of a god who has felt the closeness of true death, wishing in a moment for something eternal—for this to never end. How time can stretch and twist if a god desires it. How taut the threat of Samot’s desire is drawn, until the room shivers with it, the curtains curling urgently and the china on his desk precarious, careless, close to a fall. Ah, it shakes him—ah, it quiets him—it pulls him apart. 

But Samothes, too, can be tempted into surrender—can be the one who is shaken and unsteady—shudders when Samot pulls him close, Samot’s legs thrown over Samothes’ knees, loosely hooked around his hips so that he can press Samothes slowly into himself—shudders against Samot’s fingers where they press against his lips—grasps Samot’s arm with such urgent hunger that Samot might be looking up into a mirror, showing him a strange reflection of his own unravelling emotions. Here: Samothes bows his head, lips to the knuckles of Samot’s hand, to the ring that was made with his ingenious hands to fit Samot’s finger, coiling against book-rough skin until it erased every trace of work where it lay. Samothes’ eyes are closed, his hair tumbling in obscuring curls across his brow. No hurried thing this either, but intent, intense, every gesture a question or an answer, a flight of fancy, a life that they might live—might have lived—might be living.

Live. 

What is the difference between possibility and reality?

Samothes draws Samot to him—always, always draws Samot to him—a shadow by the forge door, a rustle of leaves in the wood. Physical, now, the force that he exerts, one hand enough to drag Samot up—but not only physical—never only. When Samot is pulled up into Samothes’ lap, into his arms—when he collapses forward against Samothes’ chest—the shuddering cry he gives is not only because of the shifting of bodies, not only because of Samothes’ cock or his hands—his hands that shake as they move across Samot’s back—as they trace the furrow of his spine—

It is because he feels the pull, back—feels the folding and sliding of time, electric against every part of him. For a moment they are younger, as Samothes wishes for it. Their faces smoothed of cares—their minds submerged in a sea-surge of will. This is the day when they went into the city to dance, crowned in gold and roses—returned laughing to bed—flowers growing and curling around their hands as they lay together, as Samothes’ head fell back against ordinary pillows—as the sheets creased beneath Samot’s knees and Samothes’ chest rose and fell hotly and every part of both of them sparked and sparked and sparked—

They cling to one another in the receding tumble of the moment. It is Samot’s will that says—let us be old together—let us live—let us live—Samothes’ hair turning wiry and the wrinkles deep around Samot’s eyes, deep as he will never in truth allow them to be—and every spot they make one another bleed a tender thing, a place touched by love—by life—in every line the proof of their vitality even as they fade—if they must. 

Samothes makes a pained sound, a dying sound, ecstatic and broken and shatteringly sad. 

Let us die here. Let no future be our concern. 

A flicker of reality only—too antithetical to their beings to simply _cease._ But imagine—both their hearts pierced in one gesture.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” Samothes says—no shaken disbelief, no figure of speech—fact. The shape of a future that’s too easy to feel, heavy as a cloak against the skin. 

“No,” Samot says through closed teeth, so fierce that it does shake Samothes now, so angry though his body shudders with pleasure.”You fatalistic _ass_ —“

“Please,” Samothes says, and he could be begging for anything—but begging—

Samot subsides. Come, then—settle into being—a long slow fuck on the floor, an almost human thing. Samot’s hair tangling—damp with sweat, damp with his husband’s tears. Allow this to be tender for a while. This once—this time, of all times.

Their hands find one another—how thankfulness surges in Samothes—how frustrated Samot is at the relief he feels when their fingers curl together. Ebb and flow and ebb and flow—Samot’s cock in Samothes’ mouth as Samot kicks at his back, hopeless and reflexive—Samothes on his stomach, Samot’s hand gentle this time but suggestive against his throat, Samot more rocking his hips than thrusting into Samothes. Samothes’ body jolts as though he’s coming, but it’s been doing this—living in this place of sharp pleasure—for—how long? How can this time be measured? The thing they are doing may be nearly human—but only nearly.

Take me apart, Samot thinks—destroy me—here, like this. Give me a clean break, so that I may spend a time alone before I rise to do what I must, may lie a little while in the quiet dark that Tristero keeps for us—

Keep me, Samothes thinks—remember me—remember, always, that I love you—

Test it out: tender, the shift of their bodies until Samothes is bending over Samot again—tender, Samothes' hand over Samot's mouth and nose—with his other hand he strokes Samot's shoulders, his chest above the heart—rubs gentle lines back and forth across Samot's skull, and Samot arches beneath him, flickering and fading—it would be the softest death, made quiet and beautiful through divinity. The sort of death that ought not exist. That cannot, not truly.

"No," Samothes says—and he kisses Samot instead—always only kissed Samot. No life smothered out of him, no spear or sword to pierce him. "No, love—"

And this is how it ends: Samothes' arms tight around Samot, Samot's face buried against the hollow of Samothes' neck. Where Samothes' hands press to Samot's skin they burn, not through Samothes' own will but through Samot's, through Samot's sharp-edged need to carry something with him.

Ah, he knows—Samothes knows. Permits it.

They know. They have known. All this time.

Samothes sits up first, this time, when they're done—in earlier days it would always have been Samot, proud and laughing and harsh, concealing every piece of want, all of his desire to stay. But now he stays. Samothes looks down at his boneless form, a ragdoll spread of naked limbs, marked here and there with the golden trace of Samothes' fingers. Eyes closed. 

Samothes will remember Samot like this. He will remember Samot laughing. He will remember Samot sitting in the dusty light falling through a library window, glass of wine balanced upon a precarious pile of books and sleeves coated in dust.

He will remember Samot at a dining room table, pretending furiously not to cry. 

Here, now, today, Samot's violet eyes open into narrow glittering slits. He doesn't move. Watches, only, as Samothes stands and gathers the simplest pieces of his clothing—pulls them on, but is careless with the fastenings, doesn't trouble to straighten himself out.

"Don't lie there," Samothes says, with an indulgent smile. Crouches beside Samot, lifting his golden hair gently back from his face. Smoothing it down. He reaches for a cloak—that cloak, the one he first made in those old early days, their first attempts at writing a life together. A joke: a fine sort of fabric to look at, and a wolf pelt to the touch. Samot is many things. Samot is not, has never been what he appears. An honest deception.

He draws Samot up to him—drapes the cloak around his bare shoulders. 

"Sentimental bastard," Samot says—but pulls it closer, fingers worrying at what appears to be the embroidered details of the hem, white thread on white cloth.

This is not the day—not the hour at which it happens. That final breaking point is years away. But they feel it—feel its shadow falling back across the years, lying across every reconfiguration of the world.

Today Samot finds himself an armchair in a dim corner and pulls his feet up into it—holds the cloak tight as an embrace against naked skin. Pours himself a glass of wine and finds a book half way down a precarious stack and is silent while Samothes works—silent when Samothes, passing by, places a hand upon his hair—silent when Samothes kisses him upon the brow.

Today they dress properly at last, and go out to eat together on the steps of the house. Today they watch Maelgwyn playing with a human girl, a child at ease—and know, all the while, that every part of this is ending.

**Author's Note:**

> [NOW GO LOOK AT THIS (NSFW) ART BY LINDA.](https://twitter.com/imperialhare/status/958186482044407810)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [sketches, wishing to be real [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13613532) by [codeswitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/codeswitch/pseuds/codeswitch)




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